"Because I said so."

The other day, I was at the zoo, looking at all the beautiful animals. The shiny, grunting pygmy hippos… the fragrant bisons… and lastly, the gibbons (which are long-armed monkies from Africa). I saw them sitting there in the sun, arms stretched out, closing their eyes to the cool breeze that flowed through the park. As my cell phone began to ring, I sighed, and looked at the primates with envy. I could be there, junk hanging in the wind, smelling like rotten fruit, and not giving a damn. Instead, I talk to some strange new person as the animals look at me with some fascination. There is no screaming. No division. And it is then that I wonder if we haven’t been evolving in reverse.

Remember being a kid, sitting in the sandbox or whatever, doing whatever the hell it is you were doing? And you’re completely happy, until some jerk comes over and starts messing with you, forcing you to do something you don’t want to do? Maybe calling you some names in the meantime? What was the person’s justification for attacking you? Was it… “Because I said so?”

We’ve all said this at one time or another. Most of us happen to grow out of it at the age of…. I dunno, five or so. But there’s certain sects of people who cling to this idea of being absolutely right, no matter what the cost to others. They carry it around like a gigantic shield, and bring this dumb, outdated concept out when backed into a corner. They rarely bother with evidence, and when you ask for it, will present you with phantom sources, spectral footnotes.

There are people with all sorts of beliefs who adhere to this type of behavior. I’m taking aim at one. Not because it alone distorts and/or manufactures facts to cover its own ass… but because out of all the groups that do this, I dislike this one the most:

Fox News and it’s Enthusiastic Viewers.

I was on a plane the other day, sitting next to a balding man and his starry-eyed son. Behind us, a heated political discussion was going on. I rolled my eyes, and muttered to him that I wish people wouldn’t talk politics so loudly. It made me rather angry, I said. He replied that it made him angry too. And then, of course, he ruined the geniality of my upcoming plane ride by saying just what was angering him…

In the space of an hour in a half, I was informed of the following:

1. The News is Very Liberal. Very very Liberal. That is a fact. Go to ratherlies.com* . It will show you everything.

2. Fox News is fair and balanced.

3. Liberals hate Christians.

4. Other religions should not be treated as being on the same level with Christianity in America.

5. Liberals love Homosexuals, who will no doubt cause the death of the American family.

6. Anne Coulter is funny.

7. Hannity and Colmes is a show featuring a conservative and a liberal, who discuss things.

8. Kerry is not a war hero.

9. John McCaine is not a war hero.

10. It was Wesley Clark, Arkansan General-cum-Democratic Presidential hopeful, not any of Bush’s men, who okayed the Bin Laden flights out of the USA after 9/11.

My answers….

1. It leans left. But that’s simply because reading the news with moralistic and religious overtones screws up the message. “Jesus is making it rain in Tampa because you touch yourself” isn’t something you want included in your weather forecast.

2. Could be true… if it is trying to balance all the supposed liberalism in other news outlets. I was also informed Fox had tried liberal shows (has it?) but nobody watched, so they dropped them, and run conservative shows. By that count, they are no longer “Fair and Balanced”.

3. Well, they keep telling us we’re going to hell.

4. Well, the Middle-Easterners hold Islam higher than Christianity, so why can’t we show ’em by holding Christianity higher than Islam here? Oh, because we’re in America, which is based on the ideals of freedom and equality. For now.

5. Yes, we love the queers. And they’ll destroy the American family. After all, I’d rather have a dead son in combat fatigues than a gay son in a turtleneck.

6. I laugh at Anne Coulter. But probably not for the same reason this person does.

7. If by “Conservative” and “Liberal” you mean “supernaturally enthusiastic conservative mouthpiece and middle-of-the-road wimp”, then yes, this is true.

8. Hence the metals.

9. Hence the years as a POW.

10. It was actually Richard Clarke, the anti-terrorism guy who was a holdover from Clinton. See? It was Clinton! Clinton! Which brings me too…

Passing the Buck and taking the Change

The blame for the terrorist attack on America has been tossed around like a beach ball. When faced with the idea that their own glorious leader and his glorious staff might have royally dropped the ball, Fox News did what any red-blooded follower of it’s ideology would do: They’d blame Clinton. Yet, when it comes to the sucky economy, this conversation often takes place:

“Well, the economy was better under Clinton.”

“It was a holdover from Reagan’s era. Clinton didn’t do that.”

Then, by the same token, I hypothesize J. Edgar Hoover got us out of the Depression through his economic policies. Evidentaly, Presidents and their economic policies are akin to sending off for X-ray goggles in the mail. Please wait two to three administrations for delivery.

Anne Coulter

I tried to think of a joke to go along with her name, honestly I did. But poor Anne Coulter’s been having a rough time as it is. Recently, she was hired by USA Today to write articles for each week of the Democratic convention, but was relieved after one article. The folks at MSNBC (not Fox, mind you) took this poor woman in. She decried the injustice that was done to her at the hands of the liberal media, and then they read excerpts of the article she wrote on the air:

Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazoned with the “F-word” are my opponents. Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling… My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie-chick pie wagons they call “women” at the Democratic National Convention.

I’m going to pull a wild guess here: Maybe USA Today didn’t cut her off because of her politics. Maybe they cut her off because she’s a terrible fucking writer.

First, “Spawn of Satan Convention” is pretty damn witty… for a girl between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Terms like that are usually written in a diary, not in major newspapers.

Gay men use covert signals? Amazing. I knew when Pierre was trying to tell me something when he waved that flashing red light at me…

Oh, and Anne Coulter is now supposedly a pretty girl. So when did being horse faced come back in style?

As for her idea of what a chick on the left side of the spectrum looks like… bitch, you are way off. Look around BP, and take a gander at it’s women. They are all what I would consider to be pretty girls… all two of ’em. They got that way without rich daddies and choir practice and absorbent amounts of makeup. They got that way without watching Fox News and calling liberals un-American and supporting a leader who has a complete disregard for human life just because it was the thing to do. They look good simply because they do. Not because they take part in some powdery-ass aristocracy.

The Maine Event

Something to keep in mind at the end of this column: Simply because somebody says something IS doesn’t mean it necessarily is. Just as the man on the plane told me that it was a FACT Wesley Clark let the Saudi’s go, so might others try to mislead you, through evil or ignorance. It is important for you, as Americans, to form your own ideals… don’t be a Fox News zombie, or a Bush-Basher (like me), unless you are certain that that is who you are. America is built on freedom, but there are still chains here…. only we are the ones making them, and locking our own hearts and minds in them.

Break the chains. Many points of view in this country are not represented… but they should still see the light of day… be heard… and have their moment. The people in power… and pursuing power, in this country, have been deafened by spin, by polls, by the roar of campaigns, of faith and paranioa. They cling to ideas many of us do not have, but for some reason, they are the only groups people are allowed to listen to. This begets such mystifying anomolies as a party that cries out for soldier’s lives, while casting the lives of unborn children to the wayside (and vice versa).

Whenyou think you’re on the side that is right, you can do some terrible things. Consider Hitler, burning bodies across Germany. Or Truman’s bombs as they seared and poisoned thousands of civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in fire from the air. Right or wrong depends on what side you are on. That is why there should not be rushes to judgement.

Consider the Maine, the ship that exploded in Havana Harbor. Experts believe now it was the fault of a boiler or a cigarette on the munitions deck… but back then, we wanted a war, so it was the Spaniard’s doing. Because we said so.

The Gibbons sit back in that cage tonight. There is no war on thier minds. No pundits blathering on about whatever. There are no Michael Moores or Anne Coulters or Colmes or Hannities (or Anonymous folks, for that matter). There is no society, no politics. Just the cage someone else put them in, with no concievable way out of it.

16 thoughts on “"Because I said so."”

This is what this site’s politics should be about, i don’t care if it’s got it’s bias so long as it admits it and it makes it point regardless and keeps me laughing

my only gripe is the length seems imposing, but in reality it’s broken up so well that it’s still a quick read, and it really held my attention the whole way A++

And damn i had to google that Anne Coulter quote just to make sure it was real… wow liberal or conservative that woman’s a moron, not to mention a pompus bitch. My only bit would be to include a link as well in times like that.

it SOUNDS like you long for this place where you don’t need to worry about things like cell phones and modern distractions, yeah? So why don’t you? Why not shed all of these modern burdens and move to the woods, are is all of that just a basis for the beginning and end.

liberals use sarcasm to attack people instead of just bullying people like conservatives do. I find the contrast interesting…sort of. people RARELY argue with facts and it really gets to me. and while I don’t hold that there is some ultimate truth out there, there are arguments with basis, and then this. And that’s fine, opinion is opinion and whatever…but things like this don’t make me see anything in a different light.

Les, i am the owner of this site and i found your article after reading his so i decided to send you a ping, i thought it might be interesting to see what a reader of opposing views might think. I’m proud of this site and this piece but i always wish we had as many skeptical conservatives as we do liberals, would make things more interesting.

thanks for the site link though and the correction on “ratherbiased.com”

I’ve questionged the whole “reverse evolution” theory myself. Humans developed conscious thought, which spawned the question “Why are we here?” These people were told to “live a good life” But what is good without evil? What is good? What is evil? What is right? What is wrong? We as humans need a reason for living, and so long as we believe we are in the right, we will continue fighting, and continue living.

It’s not as simple as just casting everything aside and just living in the wilderness. See, you can’t do that. You are in this society, you are a part of it, and there are laws in place preventing you from living the way you want to live. You can’t just tell this man to “go live in the woods”. It is socially unacceptable. You go out and live in the woods, and they’ll find you eventually and ask why you haven’t paid your taxes. Your birth certificate is your ticket into this fun house we call “Modern Civilization”. You get one ride, and it’s over when they say it’s over.

If people honestly could legally live away from society, I’m sure they would, some of them anyways. Then big business would get it’s hands on the lifestyle, turn it into a marketing device and make even more money. There’s no escaping society.

My thoughts are akin to something like this: is the society we’ve created the BEST POSSIBLE society? Is there a way to create a society with no bottom rung?

The idea of a society of equality has been attempted before, but usually is met with failure (example: USSR). However, all governments eventually fail, through revolution by the underclass or by economic failure… or by manual demolition.

Keep in mind that before capitalism and democracy, monarchies were the rule of the day.

In my mind, society works best in small, small doses. When you have to bust your ass just to get a minimum-wage job washing dishes, something is wrong.

We have it good in America, but I think we-all of us- could have it better if we really wanted to.

John: if you’re going to ping me, then please link to me. That way your readers get to hear your side of things and mine.

If you just ping me, then you post a link on my site and my readers might read you, but your readers don’t see a link to my site and never read me. That’s a pretty one-sided exchange of traffic.

The usual practice in the blogosphere is to link to the other blogger. Then your blog software (Movable Type from what I can tell) will automatically ping my post. That way your site links to me and my trackbacks link back to you. I’ve modified my Movable Type template so that trackbacks display inline so anyone linking to me gets maximum exposure, which is only fair.

It wasn’t done for traffic reasons but whatever it was more an exchange of ideas/interests, i don’t see what was stopping you from pinging us right back to get your link on our post if you wanted but whatever sorry. I figured trackback was more about exchanging ideas and notifying people of related articles than traffic. I do understand your logic on it though, so in the future no problem.

On the topic of getting away from technology, some people might enjoy Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild. It’s a true story about Chris McCandless, an idealistic kid from heads to Alaska to have a big adventure.

Krakauer profiles a lot of interesting Alaskan characters in the course of the book. One in particular moved to Alaska to prove his thesis that modern humans could live like primitive people, using hand-made stone tools and such.

Unfortunately, a lot of the people in the book come to bad ends. Alaska is a pretty unforgiving place.

hmm interesting, i would imagine that would be the case, modern humanity would no longer be suited for the wild, evolution has dropped the things that are unecessary in our modern environment that would have been required in situations like that.

I don’t think that literal of an interpretation was what the writer was aiming at, but it sounds interesting regardless.

I liked the article alot. The phantom poster strikes again I suppose. Oh well. I’ll include a more thorough review later.

On another note… as far as les jone’s blogs go… I cant say I’ll be reading them in the future. I did some reading thru em.. and the best thing I can say about them is that they stay on task and on message. The majority of them are looking are just liberal bashing, while totally missing the big picture of some of the topics that its discussing. If you want me to point out some of these topics I’ll be happy to, however here is not the appropriate place.

wow. you have done it yet again my friend. and it is nice to hear that us pretty girls on bp are appreciated. lol.

i admire your approach, you say what you think and you make no excuses for the way you feel. but at the same time you encourage people to disagree with you and remain open minded. It sucks when people read opinion articles and search for the “diffinative truth” and try to point out all the sarcasm, exaggeration etc. But I guess that is the best segway to debate for most people.

And to add to bell’s comment, It bugs me when people try to show that their truth is unquestionably right, because honestly when average people are speaking politics I dont think theres such a thing as difinitive truth, all we have to go on is the information we get from here or there, but the information provided to ‘here or there’ is pre-filtered, and depending what ‘here or there’ is, it may be filtered and skewed a second time.